"Does it concern you?" she asked with a natural hesitation; for there was a feverishness in his manner that alarmed her.
"It concerns me and Minnie."
"I promise."
"Faithfully and sacredly?"
"Faithfully and sacredly."
He took her hand and pressed it, and then gave her the letter, and asked her to read it. It contained but a few words, but they were sufficient to cause a look of horror to start into her eyes.
"Can it be true?" she asked, more of herself than of him and her trembling lips turned white and parched in an instant.
"Susan," said Basil Kindred, "I have lived long enough in the world to know its falseness. In years gone by, men have smiled in my face and shaken me by the hand, and I have learned afterwards, that while their manner spoke me fair, there was treachery in their hearts. My life has been a hard one, what with false friends and bitter poverty; but I bore it all patiently, and lived--lived, when a hundred times voices have whispered in my ear, 'Die, and be at peace!' I had an object to live for--Minnie, my darling child! So I lived and suffered, rather than die and leave her unprotected. It was a bitter, bitter life. You can guess how hard a thing it was for me to find food for her, and how often she had to go without it, before the day when you and that boy--I cannot utter his name--came to our rescue. From that time until this dark cloud"--he placed his hand on the letter--"fell upon me, I have been happy. And now, when I need all my strength to fulfil my duty as a father--when it seems to me a crime that I should allow her to go from my side--this weakness strikes me down."
"Does she know?"
"She knows and must know, nothing. But she must be watched. If there be no truth in this letter--and there may not be"--